HM Treasury has today announced a consultation on the transposition of the second EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The Directive will come into force by 13 January 2018. PSD2 represents a major regulatory change that will help to bring open data to banking. Frontier has advised clients on the strategic implications of PSD2 and recently written a bulletin providing insight on the regulations and what they may mean for financial services.

The new regulations will allow third party access, with customers’ permission, to banking data. Access to such data could be a major disruption to existing business models by opening the door to a wide range of new services and competition. One example would be the ability to bring together customers’ banking information into a single mobile app. Such an app could make financial management much easier for a customer and could be provided by any third party with the appropriate customer permission. That raises challenges for banks as to how they can maintain a connection to their own customers.

Frontier regularly advises financial service clients on these and other regulatory and competition issues.